Letter dated from Newgate Street, 21 March 1787. Latin text without place or date.

£450.00

Two items. ONE: Ostensible letter from John Villette, Ordinary of Newgate, to Sir Busick Harwood, Professor of Anatomy at Cambridge. Like Porson, Villette was a Cambridge man (St John's, BA 1771). He was Ordinary of Newgate between 1774 and 1799, the position being a lucrative one, and Porson's satire would in part appear to be directed against his cupidity in attempting to make money out of the cadaver of an executed man.